Trip to Virginia: Everything in between

When we weren't exploring the great outdoors, watching sharks or standing under war planes from the 1930s we kept busy doing other things. 

The second night we were in town I arranged to meet up with two of my oldest, most long lost friends from my childhood. Meagan was my first and best friend upon moving to where my parents now live. I was in first grade. I remember playing Barbies with her everyday in the summer. When we were in first grade we played Barbies out on the front steps of my house. When we were in 6th and 7th grade we moved to the basement where no one could see us or make fun of us. We were grade A dorks Meagan and I. Sapna and I became good friends in the fourth grade. Together, the three of us went through a lot of ups and downs. Meeting back up with them was fun. And it also reminded me that adolescent females are just the worst. It's a shame we can't live closer and be friends now that we are considerate, thoughtful adults. It really was a treat to spend time together and get caught up though- just in time for my parents to move away and for me to never see them again. Womp, womp. 

One day it was so cold that I literally thought my face would freeze off. I'm talking 25 degrees as the HIGH. No gracias. In an effort to avoid the outdoors we decided to go to a mid-day movie at the discount movie theater by George Mason University. We hadn't yet taken the boys to Big Hero 6 so we were pretty stoked to see that it was playing there. Seeing as it was a random Thursday afternoon in the dead of winter we had the whole theater to ourselves! It was perfect. Especially when Camden lost interest with about a half hour to go and decided to run up and down the center aisle for the remainder of the movie.

We followed up our personal, private screening of Big Hero 6 with lunch at McDonalds for no other reason but for the fact that it was just next door- and the boys love it.

That night we met my best friend, Kathryn, at Tyson's Corner for dinner at the recently newly opened Shake Shack. I'm not saying that going to Shake Shack was the only way that I could get Zach to come with me. But I'm also not saying that it wasn't. He had been dying to try their burgers ever since he read a business book written by the founder a few years ago.

I can not express to you how wonderful it was to see Kathryn and catch up. She was my drama-free friend in high school. Those are hard to come by. I was lucky. It was a treat to get to know her husband, Kostas, better during this visit. He is most definitely her perfect match. I loved seeing her so happy. She is the one thing that I am seriously going to miss about having a tie to Virginia. We decided that we will just have to plan vacations together in the future. (North Carolina?) I just refuse to believe that we will never see each other again!

We spent one morning at Chuck-E-Cheese. It may sound lame, but lame it was not. All the other suckers kids were in school so we pretty much had the place to ourselves. Zach cozied up to a basketball shooting game and won the boys tons of tickets. Ryan and Brady even got their picture with Chuck-E(?) himself! Camden was terrified and wanted no part of that freaky, gigantic mouse human. Good call Camden.

My mom was awesome and let Zach and I slip away throughout the week to run random errands sans children. It was divine. On one such occasion- I'm pretty sure we were supposed to be running to Target- Zach tracked down this sketchy little shop that sells fresh Maine lobster rolls (one of Zach's many business ideas). It was neat to talk to the owner and hear about his supply chain. He gets the lobsters directly from a boat off the shore of Maine. There were big plastic bins of smelly water with huge, loud filters attached as make shift housing for the live lobsters until they meet inevitable doom. Kind of depressing really and it didn't make for  the most appetizing atmosphere. Which is why we took ours to eat in the car. I think Zach gave it a C+, maybe a B. 

One morning we went to a place called Kid Junction. Online it looked like an awesome indoor playground with children's museum components. In person it turned out to be Chuck-E-Cheese with a hefty cover charge. The playground was a little lack luster (a la fast food chain play places) and all the boys really wanted to do was play the arcade games- which we had no money for since we already paid an arm and a leg just to get in! Instead of mope and complain for too long, however,  Ryan and Brady busied themselves trying to retrieve tokens that had fallen through the mesh on the play ground. It was like a real life treasure hunt! At some point Zach got involved. He found a portion of the floor cushion on the playground that he could lift and crawl under- giving him access to all the tokens the little boys had been desperately trying to retrieve using my mom's pen from her purse. Zach immediately achieved hero status as he emerged with over $6 worth of tokens. I guess there are happy endings even in a place as overwhelmingly disappointing as Kid Junction.

These are their "Pirate Treasure Hunter" faces. Brady wins all the things. 

There was a non-functioning rocket ship. It made Camden happy for about 90 seconds and I was able to get this cute picture. So that's something.

Ryan used all his tokens on a miniature basketball game like the full sized version that Zach played earlier in the week. He was actually pretty good! But no tickets were dispensed. Lame.

In an effort to get ready for the big move my mom has been cleaning out every square inch of her house. My siblings and I have received the most random packages over the past few months. (Old high school yearbooks much?) The kids were excited to dive into my mom's Halloween costume box. She told them they could have whatever they wanted. I was beyond thrilled when Ryan picked out this wizard costume. I could stare at this picture forever. The double glasses just kill me!

While we were in Virginia, Camden stabbed his brownie with a pencil and used it as a fork. I took a picture. And then I posted it here. That's all.

One of the biggest highlights of the whole trip was the last night we were in town. We went to the church where my dad used the basketball hoop in the gym to rig up a giant swing for the boys. They were in heaven. I took a few videos but I can't find them now. Still shots will have to do.

They really got pretty high! I am constantly amazed at how brave my little Brady is.

As if the swing wasn't enough, my dad then pulled all three boys around the cultural hall on a silky blanket. The boys loved it- as was evidenced by their permi-smiles and squeals of delight.

After a fun-filled week at Grandma Jodi and grandpa's house we were all ready to get home. On the long leg of our flight home Camden and I got a whole row to ourselves. It was amazing. He ended up sleeping for over an hour of the flight! Hallelujah! (Mostly because I got to play Candy Crush on the iPad while he slept! #keepingitreal)

All in all Camden was a great little air traveler. He loved watching out the window as we were taxiing in and as we were taking off. Cute pictures were the result.

Amid all the hustle and bustle of the trip, Zach found time to drive by his two childhood homes. This one is the one he lived in from his freshman year on. It's the house he lived in with his parents when we got engaged. Good times. 

Before that, he lived in this house. His family moved to VA and to this house when he was in 3rd grade.

This was kind of our "Good-bye Virginia! See you never!" trip. But in my heart of hearts I hope I find myself in Virginia again sometime in the future- even if it is just for another trip down memory lane. :)